Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

 

Willis Wu has a typical life for an Asian man.  He lives in a SRO where both his parents also live although Willis is grown.  He tries to make a living in film and television starting as Generic Asian Man.  From there there are stages, Asian Man Number Three, then Two then One, then Guest Star then for those who work the hardest on their craft and are the luckiest, the pinnacle.  Kung Fu Guy is the absolute top achieved by only a few.  His father had been Kung Fu Guy when Willis was a boy and his dreams are focused on achieving it as well.

Daily he leaves the SRO for the Golden Palace restaurant which is the set of the detective series Black And White as well as the locale where his mother was the receptionist and his father works as a fry cook.  The detective show talks about the prejudice and stereotypes of black men and women who attempt to pursue jobs in male environments.  Yet its' use of Generic Asian Men is as stereotypical as any other show and Willis must fight for a couple of lines.

But this is where he meets Karen, his love.  They have a child but their lives are threatened by Willis obsessions on becoming Kung Fu guy and they start to drift apart.  Can Willis break free and have a real life?

This novel is a National Book Award Winner and a best book of the year by such organizations as NPR, the New York Public Library, Shelf Awareness, The New Yorker, Southern Living and others.  It is a wry expose of the invisibility that minorities feel in a culture where white is the majority.  It explores the fact that there is rivalry between the various minorities such as African American and Asian and Hispanic about which encounters the worst treatment and the shame of competing in such a venue.  Although it doesn't feel factually correct in this time where there are opportunities outside of the entertainment venue for minorities, it feels emotionally correct about the reality minorities encounter daily.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction and those interested in the minority experience.  

Mortal Prey by John Sandford

 

Lucas Davenport remembers Clara Rinker well.  Years ago, he almost died at her hands.  Clara was an assassin, hiring out to crime bosses to eliminate their enemies.  Lucas, as a policeman, was another category of person Clara often killed.  She was charming enough that when Lucas met her in a bar, they actually spent the evening flirting and dancing before she tried to kill him and missed.

But that was years ago.  No one has heard from her in years.  The word on the street is that she left the life and left the country.  But now there are rumors she is coming back.  The local crime bosses found out she went South and reached down there to try to kill her.  Instead they ended up killing her fiance and hit her.  She was pregnant and lost the baby as well as her future husband.

Now she is back in Minnesota with a blood lust and determination to kill the men on her list.  She kills the first before the police even hear about her coming back.  As the FBI tries to locate her, they draft Lucas to join the team as he has experience with her and a reputation for doggedness and never stopping until he finishes the mission.  But no matter what they do, the list of killed crime bosses continues to grow.  Can Lucas and the team catch her before she ends her revenge trip?

This is number thirteen in the Lucas Davenport series.  In this one, he is about to marry Weather and is determined to eliminate the threat of Clara before his wedding occurs.  The characteristics Davenport brings to law enforcement are in full display here along with his preference for regular police over federal agencies and their employees.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

The Survivors by Jane Harper

 

Kiernan left Evelyn Bay, Tasmania shortly after the accident.  The accident that killed his brother, Finn and another man.  The accident that everyone thought was Kiernan's fault, that the men had been coming to save Kiernan when he went in the caves known to be unsafe and got caught in the storm.  The men's boat had run into the rocks surrounding the caves and sunk and both men where killed.  In a place as small and insular as Evelyn Bay, everyone knew about the deaths and everyone thought they knew exactly what happened.  Kiernan knows that even his parents blame him.

Another death occurred in that storm; a young girl went missing and her body was never found.  It was suspected that she had been swept into the sea while walking home.  Only her book bag was ever found.

Now Kiernan has returned to Evelyn Bay but this time is different.  He's a grown man now, not a teenager.  He is married to Mia and they have a baby.  He has come home to help his mother move his dad, in the first stages of dementia, into an assisted living situation and to pack up their house for sale.  he meets with his old friends and acquaintances but can tell there are still those who remember the past and still blame him.

Then the unthinkable happens.  Another girl is found, this time murdered.  She was a waitress at the pub where Kiernan had gone the night before with his wife to meet old friends.  Suspicion falls on Liam, the son of the other man killed with Kiernan's brother.  Liam still blames Kiernan but apart from his surly nature, Kiernan can't believe Liam is involved.  

As the investigation into the girl's death unfolds, secrets from that time a decade ago start to emerge.  Why was Kiernan in the caves which were known to be off-limits?  How did Finn know to try to sail past the Survivors memorial to rescue him?  Why was Kiernan's father seen with both girls shortly before their disappearance?  

Jane Harper has created another brooding mystery that could only be set in the Australian and Tasmania lands that she has claimed as her locale.  The tourist town wouldn't exist except for fishing and tourist diving trips but both can be dangerous pursuits, especially in weather that can change in an instance and transform the sea from placid to murderous.  The smallness of the town and the sense that once the town defines you your personality is set for life to them combine with the ruggedness of the environment to create a claustrophobic atmosphere that makes escape seem impossible.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Terrier by Tamora Pierce

 

Beka Cooper is starting her career in the police force.  She is a rookie, a Puppy in the Dog Patrol with two mentors, Goodwin and Cantrell.  As a Puppy, she is to listen and learn and figure out how to police a place as crime-ridden as the Lower City.  But Beka has an advantage.  She was born and bred in the Lower City and knows most of the people there.  She and her family were plucked out of poverty by the Lord of the area and he is her mentor and protector.  The Dogs are in his employ and he approves of Beka's decision to join them.

The streets are teeming with criminals.  There are pickpockets, thieves, smugglers, beggars and plenty of aggression and fights.  There are also murders and two murderers are currently at large.  One is the Shadow Snake.  He kidnaps the children of poor people and the ransom is the one treasure they have somehow acquired and hung on to.  If they pay, their child is returned, if not, their body is.  Tansy, Beka's childhood friend, has just lost her three year old son to the Shadow Shape and Beka is determined to bring him to justice.  There is also a shadowy figure who is mining opals in secret.  To keep the secret, the workers are killed and buried on the site.

Beka's other advantage is her magic.  She can hear the voices of pigeons, who carry the ghosts of the dead and can pick up clues from their stories.  She can also understand the voices of whirlwinds who also know the gossip of the dead along with all the other stories they sweep up.  Beka uses these secrets to work with her Dogs to investigate the crimes, while forming an alliance with the Rogue's Court, many of whom live in her building.  Finding the murderers will make her place with the Dogs permanent and bring justice to those she loves.

This is the first book in the Beka Cooper trilogy, which in turn is part of a huge world with many novels.  It is written in the young adult genre yet there are dark occurrences like the omnipresent slavery and the casual violence of both the police and the criminals.  Beka is a lovable character and the reader will cheer as she advances in confidence and ability.  This book is recommended for readers of young adult fantasy.

A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

 

Haven Kimmel grew up in Mooreland, Indiana, a small rural town of three hundred inhabitants and four churches. It was a poor town and no one had much money.  Everyone knew everyone and they knew their families and backgrounds.  There weren't a lot of secrets in Mooreland.

Haven's nickname was Zippy and that's what everyone called her.  She was a spunky girl, not always kind but the view into how she innocently saw her world is priceless.  There were older siblings to contend with and look up to, parents who loved her, friends who might be a friend today and someone else's friend tomorrow and pets.  Zippy might not have been worldly but she wasn't a perfect child either.  She reports that none of her teachers liked her and she spent her time in school making their lives difficult.  She was sometimes cruel to her friends but usually loyal, much as other children are.  Zippy didn't believe in the whole Jesus legend, but she was in church every Sunday and other times throughout the week as her mother was very religious. 

Her family was normal as seen through Zippy's eyes.  Her mother spent her time not in church laying on the couch reading books.  She probably suffered from clinical depression.  Her father was gone for hours every day but always seemed to know what Zippy was doing and when she might need him.  He was the largest presence in her life even though he refused to enter the church at all so was considered strange by others in the town.  Her big brother was quiet and smart although he refused to read until well into his high school years.  Her big sister was also so much older than she was definitely a separate presence to Zippy.  

This is one of the most charming books I've read in years.  The reader cannot help but fall in love with Zippy even while thanking the gods that they didn't have to raise her.  I'm not a reader who laughs out loud at books, but found myself doing exactly that multiple times in this story.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction and those interested in small town rural life.

The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore

 

Those looking in from the outside envy the Hawthorne family.  They live in a suburb of San Francisco in a lovely home.  The parents both have good jobs.  Gabe is a business consultant and Nora is a top-notch realtor.  They have three healthy and happy girls.  

But an inch below the surface, things don't look as good.  The eldest daughter, Angela is a senior in high school.  She is class valedictorian, active in sports and outside activities and has her heart set on Harvard.  But she is always exhausted and has little time to have a social life.  She has tons of homework every day after she finishes all her practices and charitable hours.  Anxiously, she wonders if she can really make it into the golden circle of Harvard admittees.

Cecily is the middle daughter.  She is obsessed with Irish dancing and considered an expert at it; something that requires hours of practices and classes.  Maya, the youngest girl, is in second grade and still not reading, getting bullied by her classmates about it.  Nora's career is always precarious dependent on whether or not she can sell the next house.  Gabe's saddled with an intern from hell who has managed to uncover his deepest secret and is trying to use it to blackmail herself into a permanent job.  Can the Hawthorne's keep all the plates spinning?

Meg Mitchell Moore has nailed the exhaustion and constant striving that success in America requires of families.  Children are overscheduled and set higher and higher bars to be considered a success.  Parents constantly balance careers and family responsibilities, spending hours after work trying to get everything done so that everyone can be everywhere they need to be.  Readers will probably recognize much of their own lives in that of the Hawthornes and read avidly to see how they solve the pressures of modern life.  This book is recommended for readers of family relationship novels.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

 

Iris Chase has always been rich.  As a girl she and her sister, Laura, were the daughters of the wealthiest man in town who owned the button factory where most of the townspeople worked.  When the factory failed Iris was basically bartered to another wealthy man who saved the factory but controlled and abused Iris.  She was whisked away from Laura and isolated by her husband, Richard, and his sister.  

Laura didn't fare any better.  Just entering her teen years when Iris was taken away, she lived in the big mansion with her increasingly remote father.  After she died, Richard brought her to live with he and Iris and started his campaign to control her.  When that didn't work, he had Laura hospitalized in a mental hospital that served as a prison.  Laura got out and disappeared.  She turned up later and gave Iris the book she had authored before stealing Iris' car and driving it off the bridge.  She was twenty-five and became a celebrity author after her death.  Her book detailed an illicit affair between a young girl and her poor lover.

Now Iris is an old woman and she is looking back at her life.  She writes in her journal everyday and along with her recounting of her daily life are excerpts from Laura's novel.  As the journal progresses, the secrets that this family kept are revealed in layer after layer of deceit and cruelty.  

This novel won the Booker Prize in 2000.  The reader is drawn into Iris' life and the sacrifices she made to try to have and keep a family and find love.  As the secrets are revealed one after the other readers will feel tenderness toward Iris, fury at the abuse and shock at what occurred.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Greenwood by Michael Christie

 

Greenwood starts out at an eco-entertainment refuge in 2038.  The Earth is choking on dust and people are dying everywhere, their children coughing so hard their ribs snap like kindling.  Greenwood Island in Canada is one of the last places with forested land and rich tourists pay fortunes to come and visit the trees.  Jake (Jacinda) is a ranger there and when she sees the first sign of disease in the trees, she is horrified and knows something must be done although her bosses do not agree.  

From Jake the novel travels back in time thought the generations.  There is Jake's father, a carpenter and furniture maker who works in reclaimed wood.  His mother Willow is considered an ecoterrorist and she threw away the fortune she inherited to live in the forest and do what she could to save them.  

But the majority of the book tells the stories of the original Greenwood brothers back in the 1920's and 1930's.  Harris and Everett are not really brothers but are raised that way, survivors of a horrific train accident that took their families and left them in the wooded Canadian north.  No one knows their family names so they are given the Greenwood name and left to the raising of an elderly isolated woman who sheltered them in a shack outside her comfortable home and ignored them.  That made the boys close, probably closer than those who did share blood.

Harris grows up and loses his sight to disease.  Regardless of his handicap, he becomes an influential and wealthy man, his fortune based on the timber he cuts and sells to those building railroads and houses in frontier and foreign lands.  His brother Everett goes to war in Harris' stead and returns a broken man.  They become estranged and only come together over their love for Willow and the mysteries surrounding her birth.  

This novel was longlisted for the Giller Prize.  It's structure echoes that of the great trees, with concentric circles leading backwards to the start of the tree's story.  There are analogies between trees and human families and an exploration of family secrets and love that spans the generations.  This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction.

Trunk Music by Michael Connelly

 

It was a routine case, if murder can ever be called routine.  The victim was Tony Alisio and he was found on Mulholland Drive near his home in the hills, shot and stuffed in the trunk of his car.  Harry Bosch gets the call.  It's his first murder in a while as he has been in another department and has just come back to Homicide.  He leads a team of two other detectives, Jerry Edgar and Kiz Rider.  

The victim is returning from a trip to Las Vegas.  As the detectives start to investigate they discover that Tony is often in Vegas.  His wife is a cold beauty who doesn't seem that upset by her husband's demise and it soon emerges that Tony went to Vegas to gamble and have other women.  It's also quickly apparent that the source of his wealth is not the low-rent porn movies he makes but laundering money for the mob.  Was this a robbery of mob cash or was his wife finally tired of Tony's disrespect and catting around?

Bosch investigates the case in both Los Angeles and in Las Vegas.  While there, he runs into someone he thought he'd never see again.  Eleanor Wish had been an FBI agent the first time she and Harry had met.  They had a love affair but Eleanor ended up caught up in crime.  She lost her job and served time in federal prison and Harry feels that it was partly his fault.  Although he is still interested, he doesn't know if they can ever get past what happened before.  

This is the fifth novel in the Harry Bosch series.  For those following the series, this one fills in more of Bosch's background and introduces the woman who will be so important in Harry's life going forward.  The murder involves not only a twisted plot line but insights into the criminal world of gambling, the inner politics of the police force and the interrelationships between various police forces and other agencies such as the FBI.  There are multiple surprises and this novel is recommended for mystery readers.

The Unwilling by John Hart

 

It's Gibson French, or Gibbie as he's known to friends, senior year.  He isn't sure what he wants to do with his life after that.  Should he go to college as his parents want?  The war in Vietnam is raging and he feels a pull to enlist and go there as his two older brothers did.  But Robert, his oldest brother, was killed there and Jason, the middle brother, came back but as a broken shell of what he had been.  Does the war deserve another French brother?

Then rumors start to float around that Jason has come back home after his dishonorable discharge and his time in prison.  It's said he runs with the motorcycle gangs now, that he deals drugs and guns and that he doesn't care for anyone.  So Gibbie doesn't know what to do when Jason seeks him out and seems to want to get to know him now that he has grown up.  He goes on an outing with Jason and two girls and finds a man very different from the rumors.

But more trouble arrives.  The girl dating Jason is found horribly murdered.  Jason is arrested and sent back to the penitentiary where he is at the mercy of a psychopath who runs the place.  When the other girl is kidnapped, the police assume that Gibbie is at the heart of that crime and now they are looking for him as well.  But Gibbie has also been kidnapped, a pawn in the power play between the man who runs the prison, Jason and the police.  Can he be saved?

John Hart has written a compelling view of a family torn apart by the times.  The French brothers grew up with a policeman as a father and his black and white view of the world makes it difficult for him to accept his sons as they grow up and have their own ideas.  He is quick to judge and although he loves his sons, he acts first and finds out the facts afterwards.  The novel touches on the national nightmare that the Vietnam war was for so many families.  It highlights the difficulties in growing up and separating from the child one was and it emphasizes family love above all.  The tension is high and is ratcheted higher with every plot twist.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

I listened to this as an audiobook.  The narrator was clear and did an excellent job.  Although the book is set in the South, there is no jarring Southern accent that so many outside the region get wrong.  He especially did a good job narrating Gibbie and his high school sweetheart.  The only wrong note was that of the powerful psychopath.  His voice is given as a slow, accented voice with a lisp and it doesn't set the stage for the fear that the reader is meant to feel for him.  Overall, the narration was clear and easy to listen to.

Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener

 

In her mid-twenties, Anna Wiener is in New York City, working a low paid job in the publishing industry.  Everyone she knows is working the same kind of barely making it job as they check their safety net of parents wondering how long they could subsist as they 'paid their dues'.  When she has the chance to change her life and move to California and work in the technology industry, she jumps at the chance.

She works there for half a decade, cycling between several tech start-ups and more established technology companies.  Anna doesn't have technical skills; she isn't a programmer or a data scientist or a security guru.  She works in customer service, fielding calls for help, tracking down copyright infringements and checking company content boards for offensive and illegal content.  She is incredibly well paid compared to her NYC days and the culture is very different.  Employee structures are flat and perks abound.   Remote work is allowed and encouraged.

But there are drawbacks as well.  A higher salary doesn't mean much when all the technology money has made the real estate market so expensive that it is the rare person who doesn't have to have roommates well past the age that most people are on their own.  Perks don't mean much in work weeks that routinely are expected to be eighty to a hundred hours weekly.  Women are marginalized as are the non-tech employees.  The buzz word for compensation is meritocracy but it's strange how the merit all seems to reside in young, white males who look just like the founders of these young companies.

Uncanny Valley is a term used in the technology industry.  It refers to the fact that individuals respond more favorably to robots that appear human, but if the robot gets too human appearing, a revulsion sets in.  It is a metaphor for the technology industry that appears fascinating and desirable from the outside but is anxiety producing and barren from an insiders' view.  It is the casual data driven environment where every purchase and opinion is tracked and sold to companies so that they can better target their products and influence society.  It is a cautionary tale that only an insider can tell.  This book is recommended for readers of nonfiction and especially for those considering a career in technology.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

 

The signs are all there if Vanessa had known to watch out for them.  Fleeing from a disaster in her college life she has fled to make a new life in New York City.  She has a good friend in her roommate Samantha and a job she loves as a preschool teacher when she meets him.  Richard is older, wealthy, a successful businessman.  He sweeps Vanessa off her feet and soon she is engaged to be married to him.  But there are little things that are off.  Sam and her other friends don't like Richard.  He gives Vanessa a trivalizing nickname, Nellie, rather than using her name.  He arranges all their dates and trips.  He even buys her a huge house in the suburbs as a surprise, without asking her if she wants it or if she wants to move elsewhere.  He assumes she will give up her job after their marriage.

By the time the beatings start, Vanessa has been totally isolated.  She is out in the countryside with no friends, no job and nothing to take up her time except cleaning and cooking for Richard.  When he starts an affair at work, she is more relieved than anything and soon they are divorced with her accepting whatever Richard deems is her right.  But now Richard is engaged again and Vanessa feels that she needs to do whatever she can to keep the marriage from occurring.  Can she thwart Richard's plans?

Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen have written a suspenseful tale with twists and turns in the plot at every juncture.  The reader isn't sure if Vanessa is a heroine or a vengeful ex-wife or what her motives are in following Richard's life after their marriage.  The flashbacks to her earlier tragedy fuel speculation about why she does the things she does as does the role of Richard's older sister, the one woman who is a constant in his life.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

A Measure Of Darkness by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman

 

When Deputy Coroner Clay Edison gets the late night call, he didn't expect what he found.  A huge block party had erupted into violence.  Opposing groups had opened fire and a panicked stampede had occurred.  There was a vehicle death on top of the gun deaths.  There was a six year old boy killed when a stray bullet came through the walls of the apartment he and his mother shared.  

All of this was bad and everyone turned out.  Clay was the last to leave and so he got the last body found.  It was found hours after the initial call and was the body of a young woman hidden in a shed at the back of the large property.  She didn't seem to have a gunshot wound; instead there was blunt force trauma and strangulation.  She was the victim of a murderous attack, probably by someone she knew.

Clay's job is to identify all the victims he is assigned, notify their next of kin and make sure all of the paperwork that accompanies a sudden death is correctly filled out and filed.  His job is not to investigate crimes but his curious nature and tenacity leaves him unable to leave things unexplained.  It takes weeks to identify the woman in the shed and when he does, he and a policewoman uncover credit card fraud of a massive nature the woman had been involved in.  Did this cause her death or did the answers lie even further back in her background?  

Readers will enjoy this father/son team of authors who combine talents to bring another Californian professional to life.  Clay is a former basketball star who lost his chance at a professional career when his knee was hurt.  He has fallen into the coroner's office by happenstance but enjoys the work and the occasional mystery he encounters.  He is dealing with the return of his black sheep brother into his family and with the intensifying of his relationship with his girlfriend.  All of this makes Clay as interesting as the mystery he solves.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

 

Henry Perowne is a man at the top of his game.  In his fifties, he is a renowned neurosurgeon working in a London hospital.  He is married to Rosalind who is a lawyer and who he still loves after many years of marriage.  They have two children.  Daisy is living in Paris and has just had her first book of poetry published.  Theo is still at home and is a jazz musician.  Everything in his life is going well.

This is a routine Saturday.  He plans to go to his weekly squash game, followed by a visit to his mother who is in care.  Then he needs to shop for a large family dinner.  Both Daisy and Rosalind's father are coming home to visit and Henry plans to cook for everyone.  The streets are crowded as there is a large antiwar protest against the intended invasion of Iraq which will set off a war.  

Because of the protestors blocking the streets, Henry takes a different route than usual and it ends in a fender bender.  The car isn't that hurt but the other man, Baxter, is upset and tries to intimidate Henry.  Baxter has two friends with him and it could end badly but Henry has learned skills that allow him to defuse the situation and go about his day.  But as everyone gathers, he sees that he didn't defuse the situation when Baxter and his friends show up unexpectedly at the Perowne household.  

This is a lovely slice of life novel.  McEwan captures the actions and thoughts of a middle aged man starting to wonder what the rest of his life will hold.  Unlike his operating theatre where he controls everything, his life cannot be controlled.  Children grow up and head off to their own lives, parents age and need different relationships.  Physical strength starts to wane.  World events seem to spin out of control and there is little the average person can do about things that will have a huge effect on their lives.  Few authors can capture a life in prose better than McEwan and the reader will be entranced with their viewpoint into Henry's life.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Booksie's Year In Review 2020

 

It's the end of 2020 and time to look back on my reading year, evaluate the goals set for this year and set new goals for 2021.  Of course, the big story of 2020 is the pandemic.  We've basically been locked down since February as we've been very diligent about only going out when it's a necessity.  That means much more time at home and much more reading time.  I've read 175 books this year which is definitely an adult high mark.  I tend to read in the genres of mystery, literary fiction, science fiction/fantasy and nonfiction.  This year I read fifty-eight mysteries, legal fictions and thrillers, seventy-five literary fictions, twenty-one science fiction/fantasies and twenty nonfictions and anthologies.  Here's the best of what I read in each category:

Mystery

1. Blindsighted, Karin Slaughter
2. Just One Evil Act, Elizabeth George
3. Miracle Creek, Angie Kim
4. The Shadows, Alex North
5. Breakdown, Jonathan Kellerman

Literary Fiction

1. Girl, Woman, Other, Bernadine Evaristo
2. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell
3. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
4. A Brief History Of Seven Killings, Marlon James
5. Ten Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World, Elif Shafak
6. Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel
7. The Overstory, Richard Powers
8. The Sport Of Kings, C.E. Morgan

Science Fiction/Fantasy

1. Wheel Of Time series novels, Robert Jordan
2. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Hank Green
3. War For The Oaks, Emma Bull
4. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
5. This Is How You Lose The Time War, Amal El-Motar/Max Gladstone

Nonfiction

1. Underland, Robert MacFarland
2. Age Of Wonder, Richard Holmes
3. Pilgrim At Tinker's Creek, Annie Dillard
4. The Black Count, Tom Reiss
5. Lions Of The West, Robert Morgan

I had several goals for this year.  The first was to read 120 books and I met that goal.  The second was to read the Wheel Of Time series and I'm at the eighth of fourteen so about halfway on that one.  Third was to reread The Satanic Verses which I did.  Fourth was to read four classics and I failed on that one.  Last was to read from my own shelves and I'd call that one a success.  I read and gave away many more of my own books this year.  Here's my goals for 2021:

1. Read 120 books.
2. Finish the Wheel Of Time series
3. Catch up on Jonathan Kellerman, John Sandford and Michael Connelly series.
4. Read three classics
5. Read at last ten of the Booker and Woman's Prize nominees
6. Continue to read from my shelves and give away what I've read

Here's to a happier 2021!

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Motar and Max Gladstone

 

They fight across centuries and across time.  They are each the best warriors of their type.  Blue and Red are sworn enemies of their organizations and only one can finally win and continue its existence.  Blue is the growing entity; full of spring and summer and flowers and birds and lush vegetation  Red is cerebral, made of logic and circuits, unemotional and unrelenting.  

But as time goes by, things start to change.  Red and Blue start to appreciate things about each other in their unending battle to defeat each other once and for all.  As they slip up and down the time continuum, carrying out missions for their sides as they plan the next step in their personal battles, they start to communicate.  Each leaves notes for the other and as they read these missives, they start to know each other and to feel what the other feels.  Finally, over millennium, they start to fall in love.  But how can enemies love?  If their masters ever discover their feelings for each other, they will be utterly destroyed.  How to love, an impossibility in the first place, and keep it so hidden that it can never even be guessed at?

Amal El-Motar and Max Gladstone are both award-winning novelists in the science fiction genre. El-Motar has won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards with her short stories while Gladstone has been a finalist for the Hugo awards for best novel.  Together they have written an intriguing work that awakens emotions in the reader; a hope that there is a place somewhere for these two enemies to find love.  The writing is luminous and lush and the reader wonders how the work was divided.  Did one author write Blue and the other Red or did they collaborate on each section?  However it was done, this is a masterful work that will be remembered long after the last page is read and is recommended for readers of science fiction.

Lies Lies Lies by Adele Parks

 

Simon and Daisy have a good life.  He's in interior design, she's a teacher.  They met and fell in love in their university days.  Their marriage had some strain while they were trying and failing to have a baby, but the birth of their daughter, Millie, six years before had completed their union.  

But is their life that perfect?  Simon is drinking more than ever, veering ever closer to the line of being an alcoholic.  Something is eating at him and Daisy thinks it started the day they went back to the fertility clinic to talk about having another baby.  She is fine with just Millie but another child seems critical to Simon.  They had left the office that day in a hurry and he has seemed different since then.

As Simon's drinking gets worse, Daisy tries harder and harder to cover it.  She suspects that their circle of friends know exactly what is going on and while everyone likes Simon, these successful professionals expect everyone to have their lives together.  But things get worse and worse.  Simon loses his job and soon he is spending his days in bed, drinking until there is nothing left to drink in the house.  When a horrific accident occurs, their lives explode.  Now the lies on which their marriage were built start to come out.

As each layer of lies is pulled aside, more truth is revealed.  Can they ever live with the brutal truths that are uncovered?  Is the truth always better than the lies that covered it and made it more acceptable to society?  Can they raise a daughter to a happy and successful adulthood if her foundation is constructed of lies?

Adele Parks has carved out a career with books that explore the darker side of relationships.  The lies that paper over the giant holes in Simon and Daisy's marriage cannot hold and the slow exposure of each lie adds to the book's tension.  Some of the surprises I saw coming; some hit me from left field.  As each layer of deceit is peeled away, the reader will emphasize with the characters and hope for a happy ending.  This book is recommended for readers of suspenseful  women's fiction.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

 

The Fifth Season is the season of death.  Events, usually ecological disasters such as volcanoes erupting occur and the Earth suffers.  Skies are clouded over and people may not see the sun for several years.  If you aren't associated with a commun, you'll probably starve to death or be killed by roving humans desperate for survival.  They occur periodically and the times between are spent preparing for the next.  If you are lucky, a fifth season may last a few years.  If not, it could be decades and if your commun didn't store enough food, it will also die.

Society is broken into castes.  Orogenes can control the earth, stop a quake before it grows big and disruptive.  Although it would seem logical that beings with that much power would be on top of society, they are instead on the bottom, cast out and feared, told they are less than human and treated the same.  They are broken, taught and controlled by Guardians.  There are Strongbacks to handle the soldiering and protection needs and Leaders to set policy.  Everyone else are Stills, just normal people trying to make a living and survive.

A small girl is cast out of her family when it is discovered that she is an orogene.  A Guardian arrives to take her off to the Fulcrum, the place where orogenes are trained and controlled.  After she grows, the novel follows her on a mission where she meets one of the most powerful orogenes, Alabaster, who teaches her things about being an orogene and how they fit into the world that the Fulcrum dare not mention.  She and Alabaster break free and use their power to try to carve out a life away from society.  Can they survive?

This is the first book in a trilogy that has garnered enormous praise in the science fiction genre.  It won the Hugo Award for Best Fiction and was also a New York Times Notable Book.  It is a novel that uses the science fiction genre to explore the issues of power and oppression, resistance and survival.  The plotting is complex and the various threads weave together to surprise the reader with discoveries as it winds forward and back upon itself.  It is written without sentiment but the reader will become entwined in the lives of the characters regardless.  This book is recommended for readers of science fiction.  

A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter

 

The call is sad but routine.  A college student has been found dead under a bridge.  It is probably the usual suicide but coroner Sara Linton isn't sure.  There's something about the body that just doesn't seem right.  She is telling her ex-husband, the police chief, Jeffrey, that when she realizes something else isn't right.  Her sister had ridden along with her to the call as they were out running errands.  She went into the woods and hasn't returned.  When they find her, she is near death, stabbed and left for dead.

As Sara rushes with her parents to Atlanta to the hospital with her sister, Jeffrey starts to investigate.  The suspicion is deepened when the girl who found the body is found dead the next day, the body staged to again suggest suicide.  Jeffrey narrows in on a suspect, the son of a white supremacist.  But his former sergeant, Lena, now works as campus security and she doesn't believe the son is involved.  Jeffrey is furious and fearful as evidence starts to accumulate to suggest Lena herself could be involved.  She quit the force after she was kidnapped and held for several days a year ago.  Could she have strayed so far from the law she loved then?  Is this a revenge plot?  As the bodies continue to appear, Jeffrey and Sara must race against time to uncover the killer.

This is the third novel in the Grant County series by Karin Slaughter.  The main characters, Jeffrey and Sara, are still in limbo, back together after their divorce but not yet ready to make it permanent.  Jeffrey's need to protect Lena and her total rejection of his protection adds more suspense.  Slaughter has created an entire environment that the reader will recognize as they settle in for another suspenseful tale.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

What You Wish For by Katherine Center

 

When the principal of Samantha's elementary school dies, the school is horrified.  Max and his wife Babette had created the school and spent their lives making sure that it was the most creative and enriching environment possible for the children it served.  Sam is the school librarian and Max and Babette her best friends.  She loves everything about her school and like her other faculty friends she worries what will happen next.

When the new principal is announced, she can't believe her ears.  It is Duncan Carpenter and she knows him.  He had worked at her first school and was the star of the faculty.  He was goofy and filled with a sense of fun that included every child and encouraged them to dream big and follow their dreams.  The children loved him and unfortunately so did Sam.  But Duncan was dating someone else and it finally became so painful for her to have him unavailable that she moved to Texas and the school that Duncan is now coming to.

Her trepidation aside, she informs the faculty what a wonderful person they are getting, someone who will carry out Max's vision of the school.  But four years can change a person and it has changed Duncan.  Instead of an offbeat man who loves children and fun, he has become an authoritarian who is determined to change everything about the school and turn it into a fortress.  He wants to take away everything that Sam loves about the place.  Can this be the Duncan she knew?

This lighthearted romance serves as the vehicle to encourage readers to follow their dreams and take the bitter with the sweet, to be strong and unafraid to live life as it should be lived.  Sam has changed herself from meek to outrageous and she boldly fights to save her vision.  The novel received lots of awards such as People's 'Book Of The Week' and Parade's 'Best Beach Read of 2020'.  If I had one quibble it was that Sam didn't seem as emotionally mature as her age.  Her attitude towards Duncan and love often seemed more like that of a teenager with her first crush that a woman in her thirties.  The novel was paced well and the characters were enjoyable.  This book is recommended for readers of women's fiction.